Meds wrote:While I am extremely disappointed that there wasn't more done here, I am giving MG a pass on deadline day moves. He's damned if he does and damned if he doesn't when it comes to making a trade.....barring an out of the park fleecing, but it's not likely to happen as Garth Snow didn't have much to offer us right now, even IF one of our players would waive to go to the Islanders.

We just saw what he got for a top 10 goaltender. A project and a 3rd line center.

If he had given up Kesler for Pittsburgh's offer, the one without Maata, would anyone here be happy with that move? I wouldn't have. Even if he gets 2 first round picks out of the Penguins it wouldn't be enough because they are likely to be picks that fall between 24-30 overall.

If nobody is offering anything worthwhile, then why force a deal just for the sake of making a deal? That's stupid.

Luongo's deal was somewhat forced, but that was by the situation, not just because Gillis felt the need to shake things up.

The thing is Meds, all of the media pundits were in agreement that Kesler's trade value would never be as high as it would be this trade deadline.

And you have two traditional hockey rivals reported to be in on Kesler.

With so much leverage, for whatever reason, GMMG still wasn't able to get a deal done.

Comparing the returns for Luo versus the potential returns for Kesler is an unrealistic comparison due to Luo's contract.

The bottom line is GMMG couldn't make the deal happen and the Canucks leverage has decreased because of it.

Exactly. Kesler's value is apparently incredible.....according to all the pundits.

But Detroit, even with Datsyuk and Zetterberg out of the lineup, were unwilling to give up a player, a prospect, and a 1st rounder. They said the asking price was too high.....at least according to TSN Twitter.

Holmgren has confirmed he made no offer for Kesler.

The Penguins were interested and made an offer, but it wasn't one that any of us thought was good enough.

What if I'm trying to sell my car. Everyone, friends, experts, passersby, all of them tell me it is worth $20K. And I know I need to make at least $18K on this if I'm going to let this go and get something else. You come along and think it is only worth $15K. And you say you really really want it. And I say that I really want to sell it. But you won't give me more than $15K. We haggle, you are willing to come up to $16K and no further. You won't budge. You really really want my car. And I wanna sell it to you. But you won't pay what everyone says it is worth. You won't even get within range. So I say I'm sorry, I want to make this happen but I just can't if you won't at least get closer to the actual value. I can't put a gun to your head (legally), same goes for you. We part ways.

Now, did I fail to make it happen? Or did you fail to acquire it? Who didn't get it done?

It doesn't matter what everyone comes away saying, there was no deal to be made because you wouldn't pay the asking price, even though I was willing to lower it. You still refuse, in that scenario you were the one who stalled the deal.

Same goes for Gillis. He didn't stall the deal, nobody was willing to pay the price.....and from everything the pundits have said, Kesler was the hottest commodity on the market. And nobody was paying.

We don't know about the other deals that may or may not have been in play for other players. But same scenario applies.....what if you actually are willing to pay the price for my car and now my car won't start for you. It evolves a mind of its own and says it won't start for you if I sell it to you and then gives me a list of names I can sell it to. But none of them will even entertain my price.

Done and done.

Where Gillis failed was when he didn't trade Edler prior to July 1st of 2013. Edler's value was high, he had no NTC and probably.....but again, in the cap crunch market we were entering I think it was unattainable.

There will be movement this draft day for sure, and there will be more movement in the off-season as the cap is going up.

I wonder how much the cap going up by $6 - $7M will allow a better deal to be done in the summer?

If supposedly the most you can get is at trade deadline day then what chance is there for a deal to happen in the summer. The only way is if one of the parameters changes and to me this is the max cap a team can spend.

Maybe Gillis can do a better deal in the summer prior to teams blowing their loads on UFA.

Reefer2 wrote:I wonder how much the cap going up by $6 - $7M will allow a better deal to be done in the summer?

If supposedly the most you can get is at trade deadline day then what chance is there for a deal to happen in the summer. The only way is if one of the parameters changes and to me this is the max cap a team can spend.

Maybe Gillis can do a better deal in the summer prior to teams blowing their loads on UFA.

Yup I think it'll make it a helluva lot easier with expiring contracts and more flexibility, plus there will be no sense of craziness to make such a big blockbuster deal, it will be less scary for the other GMs as they can plan it out a lot better, plus hopefully Kesler will expand his teams that he will be accept a trade to.
bluejackets, ducks etc.

Meds, the art of selling / making deals is never as black and white as you make it to be.

A good example of a GM that does have what it takes to do a deal is Brian Burke and his draft day Sedin heist (google it, its a very good read).

Mike Gillis has not proven to anyone that he's capable of making such deal. He talks a big talk but that's all that's happened. A whole lot of talk.

And looking back at his trade deals, none of them are all that impressive. His best one was Ehrhoff. Every other one was garbage for garbage.

Mike Gillis had the number one blue chip asset in this past trade deadline in Ryan Kesler. Elite skill and talent combined with a good contract. And wasn't able to do anything with it.

Combine this with everything else that has gone on with this team this season, it doesn't exactly inspire confidence in me that Gillis is the right guy to keep leading this team.

Well he hasn't had to make many really impressive trades up until now. Seriously, the team was improving under his watch, he supported the core. They took a trip to the finals and won to Presidents Trophies. Then lockout. Shortened season. Cap rollback season, and the team went over a fucking cliff. It's pretty hard to judge what was or wasn't out there because the media spins it so badly. We have Holmgren confirming that Philly's interest was a sham. We have TSN reporting that Detroit wouldn't pay the price. So who knows.

1) from the day MG was hired he's talked about the team approach to running the team. He has always said that decisions are made by consensus and everyone has input, that includes the owners. He always goes out of his way to say that that is the way it should be. So from day one we knew that ownership would be involved in the hockey operations. This is not a sudden change and thus nothing for MG to get pissy about. He took the job under these circumstances and these circumstances have not changed.

2) after listening to all the talk today, Tallon saying he hadn't heard from the Canucks since last year, Luongo thanking his agent for his work in getting this done, to Luongo's agent saying he was granted permission Saturday to speak to other teams to see if he could facilitate a trade, I now firmly believe MacKenzie was right. The de scion to start Lack in THAT game caused this sudden trade and the trade had nothing to do with a re-build but a promise to Luongo to try and move him. Luongo said several times he was surprised at the trade because he thought his contract was un moveable. Seems all it took was for his agent to be granted permission to speak to a few teams and it as done real fast. This makes MG look pretty stupid but it also tells me he wasn't looking to move Luongo right now.

3) given the above WTF were they thinking starting Lack??? If this was really just a Torts decision then welcome to Vancouver John. But what a huge penalty to pay.

4) I think management are sort of like a deer in the headlights right now. Shocked to be where we are and just caught unprepared for this outcome. I really believe they didn't see the window closing shut so quickly with such finality. I think there is still some belief that this season is an aberration and we are better than the standings show. I also think there is disagreement on what needs to done to fix it. In that regard perhaps it is better that changes were not made today.

5) I don't believe there was a bidding war for Kesler today. I believe numerous teams called but I doubt there were many that could afford to pay the price and take on the cap.

6) MG promised this would be a season of change, a chance for younger players to step up but he failed to create that environment. Hopefully this season will be all he needs to see he had better make the change next year. The status quo won't get it done. He may never get this chance again where the fan base is so united in that fact.

7) something sure stinks in the front office. When I hear MG speak I just don't believe a word he says anymore. I miss BB.

Good post Meds re: dynamics of trading Kesler, and I look fwd to reading every post you produce HW

I like the title Spock gave to this thread. We can all go on about the various reasons regarding the 'why' of it all, but the FACT is, the Canucks are dreadful to watch right now; they absolutely will not make the playoffs and there are two people that are ultimately accountable for it all - Torts and MG. Dress it up any way you want. Gillis didn't deliver over the last year in acquiring any kind of scoring support, and Torts doesn't know how to teach or support offense. An effective defensive system means nothing if your team can't score a minimal amount to support it.

So we will see Torts continue to do the same thing until season's end (cause he really doesn't know what else to do), and MG will spout out about the team having injuries and not having a enough depth. We continue to hear posters purport a view that Gillis is going to do something that will define his tenure and....well here we are - this is it! As much as he claims to recognize that we need to get younger, he has made that almost impossible as a result of the NT contracts he has created in conjunction with some pretty fucked up over-priced contracts. Anyways... rudderless is apropos.

Last edited by nuckster on Wed Mar 05, 2014 4:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.

What has happened to Tortorella? His Tampa 2004 team had gifted offensive players that scored at least enough to win a Cup... why did his Rangers and now Canucks collapsed into defensive shells that cannot score?

What has happened to Gillis? A GM who added Ballard, Malhotra, Hamhuis, Higgins, and Lapierre on the way to a cup run... Why trade Luongo, signaling an obvious capitulation on Canuck aspirations, but then hold onto depreciating assets that are no longer part of the future solution?

The biggest indicator of the performance of Mike Gillis is if you have Roberto Luongo and Cory Schneider as your "#1 in the league" goaltender tandem in June 2013, but in March 2014 you have Jacob Markstrom and Eddie Lack instead - well, you have failed as a GM.

mathonwy wrote:
I had given GMMG a bit of a pass on this season due to the sheer amount of unforeseeable things that have happened (such as the injuries). But the mishandling of the starting goaltender at the Winter Classic, the sudden dearth of goaltending depth with the Luo trade and the absolute nothingness that happened at the trade deadline has revoked that pass.

Am I the only one who sees this:

Torts hates players tweeting.

Lou continues to tweet, Torts says it's a free world, still wishes they wouldn't, and that they should be careful.

Then Lou sends a tweet to Kesler, implying that Kesler asked for a trade and Lou still wants out badly.

No one loves humour more than yours truly, but you just DON'T say those things for the world to hear.

Then Lou follows that up with making a big scene in the press about being sat.

I don't blame Gillis or Torts for any of that.

I blame the league for the "Luongo Rule" and I blame Aquaman for being too cheap to CBO Luongo.

AND I BLAME LUONGO.

Laughing at all the pitchforkers who used to praise Gillis but now can't think of anything good he's ever done.

Last edited by Strangelove on Wed Mar 05, 2014 4:34 pm, edited 3 times in total.